


Sun, Sand, and Pineapple

by james



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-28
Updated: 2010-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny muses on the things he doesn't like about Hawai'i.  And maybe one thing that he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sun, Sand, and Pineapple

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt by ladyvyola: Danny's on-going battle with all things Hawai'ian -- sun, sand, surf, pineapple, Steve.

He should, Danny tells himself, just call it an altar and be done with it. The top of the dresser is just about the only flat surface he has in this flea-bag one-room motel he calls home and he's grateful now that shipping costs had forced him to get rid of practically everything he owned when he moved here. He'd have had to get rid of it anyhow just to have room to turn around.

He doesn't have much need for things, really. It isn't like he has any hobbies beyond 'work' and 'being a dad.' All of his family photos are on his laptop, loaded for him by his sister when he told them he was moving. She put a bunch of converted home movies on there as well, like the one of Grace as a baby, playing with her cousins, and their Grampa's last birthday before he died. He hasn't watched any of them, except maybe Mario's wedding video, but that's more because of the exotic dancers Mario's so-called friends had hired for entertainment than anything else. Guys and ladies dressed in practically nothing, scandalizing Mario's parents -- especially when Mario's sister ran off with one of the lady dancers.

The laptop is also where he makes his calls home, hooked up to Skype so he can watch the little ones grow up and see his mother's face when she tells him he isn't getting enough rest. His life is on that laptop, the part of him that isn't living behind a wall in a mansion in paradise. So he doesn't need shelf space except for the little bit he's got on the top of the dresser. And what he's got _there_ is a goddamn altar to the paradise hell he's stuck in.

There's a bottle of sunscreen -- _sunscreen._ Has he ever worn sunscreen in his _life_ before this? He wouldn't bother now, except his skin isn't built for tropical sunshine and he's not about to get himself killed by skin cancer before Grace turns 81. He keeps a bottle for her as well, Disney Princess stuff stashed away in the bathroom.

Also on the dresser is a flyer for the only pizza joint in the neighborhood that will deliver without demanding a ransom for delivery charges. He doesn't bitch -- much -- about all the crap on the menu that isn't cheese pizza. He doesn't order the pizza anyhow, because one bite and all he can think is that he's too far away from home. But they do pretty good breadsticks, and the pasta's decent, and even if he has to explain every single time that no, he doesn't want pineapple in his meatballs then that's the price he pays for saving $20 getting Al's Roma Pizza to deliver.

Al's pizza sucks, too, but they'll bring a six pack of beer instead of soda if you know how to ask for it.

The other thing isn't anything he wants to leave there. But every time he picks up anything from the dresser - or from anywhere ever, at all, there's a fine sprinkling of sand. Stuck in every crevice, filling every crack and cranny; Danny swears it's an invasion by sentient sand people, crawling in to take over his life one molecule at a time.

They're welcome to it, he'd tell them, given the chance. He can't imagine what they'd want with it, but if they made a sand simulacrum of him (and his daughter) he could leave them here to take their places, and he'd grab Grace so fast and run for the nearest plane going back to Jersey.

He keeps an eye out for signs of communication, so he can give in to their demands.

Other than that, it's just his wallet and badge and keys, and whatever coins he's pulled out of his pocket. But it, too, is just a reminder. He spots it on his keyring, the last thing that makes him think he should just bow his head and give in. Or sneak out in the dead of night and run. Go someplace cold, with steel and metal and people who talk sense if they talk to you at all, where the bad guys shoot each other over dinner and burn down buildings instead of parading around in flip flops and shorts talking like surfers in suntan commercials.

For a long time he was alone on this island, alone but for Grace -- and, really, for the most part that meant he was truly alone. Then along came fucking Steve McGarrett and his stupid Navy SEAL smile and his crazy adrenaline-junkie driving and the incredibly annoying way he had of completely riding roughshod over every objection Danny could make to acting like a normal police officer -- or a human being.

There's a key on his keyring that unlocks the door to Steve's place. Steve's dad's place, really, though Steve doesn't call it that and there's no reason to think the inheritance didn't go through. But where Danny comes from everybody remembers the Connors house where Old Lady Connors lived, even though she died forty years ago and the Connors family moved away when Danny was twelve. And Bill's uncle's place has been Bill's uncle's place despite changing hands four times in one year alone and Danny isn't even sure if anybody knows who Bill is, much less his uncle.

It's the key that's the problem though, handed off casually with practically no explanation other than 'you might need it' and some insane babble about something that might have been a fruit, or a rock band, or the name of a street in Morocco. Danny doesn't ask anymore, because he knows he doesn't know, and he's tired of showing Steve that he doesn't know. Is it his fault he spent his life living like a normal person in Jersey instead of traveling around the world shooting harpoons and bazookas at people?

He has no idea if Steve expects him to use it. Danny had been complaining about the motel's lack of disease-free laundromat, and Steve had invited him to use the machines at his place, and Danny... Knows this is the fourth or fifth thing Steve has done. Lately, at least. If he starts thinking about it there are things he's done since the moment Danny first thought about shooting him, which is to say, the moment they met. But they're little things, and half of them make sense only to McGarrett, but each of them keep piling on top of each other like the detris on Danny's dresser until all he can think is one thing that scares the living hell out of him.

It's starting to be not so bad, living out here. And he's starting to feel not quite so alone.


End file.
